The pregnant American moon dies away
from the unkempt LA sky
From the wide window,
perched in near emptiness, I can see
an empty page
in the bittersweet sky, one upon which
I am trying again to decipher the pledges
made by an unfaithful angel

I have traveled from clime to clime,
from sky to dark caves,
like an orphaned heart
chiming with sorrow and dread,
and the American moon is nothing different

To every place I’ve gone,
the moon is suffering enormously
from those intent looks of hungry folks,

She is suffering from the severe scars that
exaggerate what she wants to unveil,
her sore flesh looking like a very
pale reflection of a confident Goddess

Is the stained Los Angeles moon
another unsuccessful project?

Is she another incomplete canvas deserted
by a painter tortured by visions too
beautifully painful, just like those

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Friday, January 14, 2011

Disappointment, and frustration erupt,Words as sharp as the knives you so carefully tend sever the ties that bind,Neither of us knowing how to fix them or even if they should be fixed,You simply drive away.

I can’t see your smile to know that you are still mine,The voices in my head tell me that you are moving on,The phone a poor substitute for the feel of your embrace,A tentative thread binds us still.

I want to be in your arms,Your hands cupping my face,Eyes locked as I tell you that I love you, That you will always own a piece of my soul.

I settle for phone calls and laughter,Weaving a net of gossamer threads, Our spirits dance across the divide, Cold comfort as we relinquish our ties.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

I'll be reborn tonight, into the streets I'll be reborntonight, I have a thought, it's pouring out of my eyesit flows down from the open window like a desire but it's a thoughtand it sprawls like a red stain across wet asphalt.Take me on an ambulance ride into the night, tonight, I'll be reborn and we can spread ourselves like a red stain on wet asphalt, chasing that thundering thought down,I want the sirens howling above and behind us,a trail of smoke and sirens behind us, tonight the city is a red stain on wet asphalt, into the streets I'll be rebornas a thought pouring down the open window like a thunderous desire.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Gossamer ThreadsDisappointment, and frustration erupt,Words as sharp as the knives you so carefully tend sever the ties that bind,Neither of us knowing how to fix them or even if they should be fixed,You simply drive away.I can't see your smile to know that you are still mine,The voices in my head tell me that you are moving on,The phone a poor substitute for the feel of your embrace,A tentative thread binds us still.I want to be in your arms,Your hands cupping my face,Eyes locked as I tell you that I love you,That you will always own a piece of my soul.I settle for phone calls and laughter,Weaving a net of gossamer threads,Our spirits dancing across the divide,Forever entwined.My Bio ~ Carmen Taggart writes and photographs when the muses speak from the mountains of Pennsylvania. Most recently Carmen's writings have been published at The Camel Saloon, Ink Sweat and Tears, and Ink Bean. More of her ramblings and musings can be found at her virtual home http://www.musidoras.com

Such is the plight of the literati forever shivering in a seaof nothingness, as if tubercular verbs& anemic adjectivescould pour the bristling wine of intelligencefrom an albino flask,as if desire alonecould rattle the angels of reasonfrom hibernation,as if, only, as if words,naked, or half-dressed in tailored Italian suits,words in Victorian nightgowns,words stitched togetheras bombs, IED’s, switchblades,words pulled from color-coordinated cardboard boxespopping like popcorn or newly improved tissuesguaranteed to soothethe cumbersome soulsof humans vaguely hot on the trailof something hitherto unknown,or at least lethargiclike the government drugs of choice.

I say inhale the feathersof lightning-streaked, ochre-wingedwords the size of an index fingerflocking the imagination’s branches,chattering, otherwise preoccupied,words dying, staining the psychewith the purple berries of the crowberry bushbleeding the sidewalks of…ahh… whatever,you know, words, words, words,that shiver their archetypal hindquarterswhenever they spot the aberrant hyenas of truthloitering nearby.

If you can hearas I can nowthe rose of nounthe bee of verbthe hive of mindthen you can hearas I can noweverywherethe zitherof the siphoningsof dayeverywherethe lastletter ofthe alphabet.

Meeting Dad Again

Thirty years later, Dad came backand we met for Ham and Yams at Toffenetti’s.Pouring his tea, he told me he hadto restore power onceat a newspaper warehouseand the storm broke againand the lightning cracked his ladder.He spent the whole day, he said,sitting in that dark warehouse,waiting for the lightning to stopand for the truck to bring a new ladder.He had a great time, he said,sitting next to a flickering lanternand reading for hours the Sunday comicsprinted and stackedsix months in advance.

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